Monday, December 17, 2018

Christmas Plates

I closed on a house last week. The best part about it is that I was able to do it without cheating on my taxes or getting my mommy to co-borrow with me. Because that's how an adult does things, right?

A few weeks before my final walk-through, I told the previous owner that she could feel free to leave any items that had been in the garage and I would take care of disposing of them. Along with some other odds and ends, there was a decent dining room table and chairs stored in there that I felt we could use for a few months until we get around to furnishing the dining room.

After moving the dining room table out of the garage and into the dining room, I found a box tucked into a corner. It had obviously been there for quite some time, as it had been pretty well worn and faded. And inside that faded box? A pristine set of Christmas dinnerware. Someone had obviously opened the box, took one plate out to look at it, put that plate back in and then forgot about it. I imagine a previous occupant getting the Christmas plates as a gift, opening the box up for a round of halfhearted Ooohs and Aaahs and then deftly stashing it away while making a vague mental note to use the plates the next time that relative came over for the Holidays.

In a way, finding these plates was kind of fitting. Christmas came early this year when the family was brought together under one roof. Our little band of misfits found a place to call home and these tacky plates are a good reminder of how even the most unexpected offerings that life throws at us have their place. Our place is together, with these plates in our cabinets.....very deep in our cabinets, but there nonetheless.

So, we all gathered around the ramshackle dining room table and ate dinner from our Christmas dinnerware with smiles on our faces, laughter in our hearts, and joy in our souls. Myself, I decided to forgo the use of my usual coffee mug so that I could be the one who drank from the Christmas mug. And it was the best cup of coffee I had ever had.